Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States, second only to heart disease (which is frequently due in part to atherosclerosis). Since 1990 approximately 12 million new cases of cancer have been diagnosed and five million persons have died of cancer in the United States.
Neural injury can result in death or profound disability such as loss of movement, impaired sensory perception, loss of cognitive functions, seizures, and emotional and personality disorders.
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and psoriasis are prevalent chronic inflammatory diseases propagated by inflammatory angiogenesis. RA affects approximately 1-2% of the world's population. RA sufferers often experience pain and impaired mobility, and as a group they have twice the mortality rate of their unaffected counterparts. Approximately 1-3% of United States residents and an even higher percentage of Northern Europeans suffer from psoriasis, a disease in which the skin develops recurrent erythematous plaques that burn and itch.
Chronic wounds or skin ulcers are major problems in diabetic and geriatric populations. Poor healing of acute wounds inflicted by accidents or surgical incisions and the formation of wound-associated scars seriously impair recovery from such events. Reperfusion injuries cause damage to transplanted organs as well as tissues near the site of surgical intervention, stroke or heart attack.
There is a need for a prophylaxis that would prevent cancer, gliosis during repair of nerve injury, chronic inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis, scarring during wound healing, keloid formation, chronic wounds, reperfusion injury and atherosclerosis. There is also a need for an effective and safe therapy for each of these medical conditions.